THE LEAD

From the available reporting, Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan went completely off the rails today in the sentencing hearing concerning Michael Flynn. Many counted on Judge Sullivan, the man with the reputation for investigating and causing prosecution of illegal Justice Department tactics. Judge Sullivan, after all, famously called the Justice Department to account in the prosecution of Senator Ted Stevens, courageously tossing the entire case because of failures to produce exculpatory evidence to Stevens’ defense. It was hoped that someone with Sullivan’s reputed judicial integrity and courage would brake and call to account Robert Mueller’s legal assassins, who are intent on destroying President Donald Trump and anyone associated with him. That hope, at least today, proved illusory. Judge Sullivan appears to have an extreme case of Trump derangement syndrome in full bloom or to be under some other nefarious influence, possibly located in the numerous sealed Mueller filings in the case, or other national security whisperings from the intelligence community. This writer has personally witnessed a normally balanced and rational Judge completely changing posture, turning both hostile and stark white with his hair on end, after viewing in camera national security submissions from the United States government, or having words whispered to him from this quarter.

According to press accounts, Judge Sullivan began the hearing by examining Flynn and his attorneys under oath concerning whether or not Flynn was really pleading guilty to making false statements to the FBI in a January 24, 2017 interview at the White House. In that interview, Flynn allegedly made false statements about whether he and Russian Ambassador Kislyak, discussed sanctions the Obama Administration had just levied against Russia. That discussion was intercepted and the Justice Department had the full classified transcript prior to seeking to interview Flynn. The contents of the classified intercept had also been leaked to the Washington Post. Both the unmasking of Flynn’s name and the leaks are felonies committed by Obama Administration officials. There was absolutely nothing illegal in Flynn’s discussions with Kislyak or any discussion they had about the sanctions.

Whether or not Flynn lied to the FBI has been an issue ever since FBI Director James Comey testified to Congress that the interviewing agents did not believe Flynn was intentionally lying about the Kislyak sanctions discussion. But, in December of 2017, Flynn subsequently pled guilty to the crime of making false statements to the FBI in that very interview. This controversy deepened with the release of three separate FD 302s of that interview, on Judge Sullivan’s order, after Flynn’s attorneys detailed the surrounding circumstances in their sentencing memorandum. The FBI documents demonstrate that the FBI agents believed that Flynn was not intentionally lying about material facts in his FBI interview at the White House, and that the Justice Department interview was the result of a plan to ambush Flynn and set him up, creating a crime which never existed prior to the interview. The now released FD 302s also suggest that the essential elements of the crime of false statements were not present, even after the White House interview.

In answer to the Judge’s questions, however, both Flynn and his lawyer said they were not withdrawing the guilty plea, that Flynn was guilty as charged, that Flynn knowingly lied, and that Flynn was not claiming entrapment by the Department of Justice. All of this was somewhat expected under the circumstances.

These circumstances include Flynn’s admission to illegal lobbying activities on behalf of the government of Turkey, an uncharged crime also implicated in Flynn’s plea agreement now before Judge Sullivan. True to form, when faced with questions about his own actions in the Flynn case, Robert Mueller yesterday unsealed indictments involving Flynn’s former company in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia. This created a media barrage one day ahead of Flynn’s sentencing. The indictments charge two of Flynn’s former business associates with felony violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act for undisclosed lobbying on behalf of Turkey. Flynn has admitted that he lied concerning the involvement of the Government of Turkey in these activities on FARA statements he filed with the Justice Department and has cooperated in the case involving his former associates. According to all accounts, this was the actual crime for which Mueller sought to impale Flynn and his son and was at the center of Flynn’s decision to plead guilty and cooperate with Mueller’s team in order to save his son from prosecution and his family from complete financial bankruptcy. If Flynn withdrew his guilty plea, all bets were off in terms of prosecuting Flynn and his son for the FARA and other possible violations. As others point out, FARA has only recently been prosecuted repeatedly as a criminal offense. All of these recent prosecutions are under the aegis of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

But, a rational Judge, not under some as yet undisclosed influence, had options other than the publicly forcing Michael Flynn to recapitulate his guilty plea. Judge Sullivan could have ordered fact finding, an evidentiary hearing on the circumstances surrounding the FBI’s set up of Flynn on January 24, 2017. He could have ordered a hearing concerning Mueller’s apparent attempt to prevent production of the original FD302s of that interview, conducted by none other than disgraced FBI Agent Peter Strzok. He could have explored Mueller’s obvious tweaking of the facts of that interview to support charges against Flynn in an FD 302, based on a re-interview of Strzok, and composed in July of 2017, six months later. He could have explored why the phones Mueller issued to Strzok and his lover, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who famously expressed their hatred of Trump and plans to “stop him,” were wiped clean after Mueller dismissed them from his task force. He could have explored whether the FBI leaked the contents of the Flynn/Kislyak transcripts to the Washington Post, one day before Flynn’s interview, and told the Post to report that Flynn had already been exonerated of any wrongdoing by the FBI concerning these conversations. This, and fired FBI Deputy Director Andy McCabe telling Flynn he didn’t need a lawyer for the interview and instructing agents not to warn him or refresh his recollection fairly reek of a set up. James Comey, in separate testimony to the House today added the bizarre justification that the FBI needed to know why Flynn lied to Vice-President Pence about the Kislyak sanctions discussion. In short, Judge Sullivan could have and should have explored the whole ugly record of Flynn’s targeting by the FBI and British intelligence. This choice, of course, would implicate major prosecutorial misconduct by Mueller and friends.

What next occurred, from all published accounts, was not normal. Judge Sullivan reportedly launched into a wild and unhinged tirade against Flynn, expressing “disdain” for him, underlining what he claimed to be the extremely serious nature of the crime of lying to the FBI, saying falsely, that Flynn was acting on behalf of foreign governments, including Turkey, while serving as National Security Advisor from the White House, and asking the prosecutor, outrageously, whether Michael Flynn, who is a decorated combat veteran, had committed treason. Judge Sullivan repeatedly signaled that he could very well impose a prison sentence on Flynn and asked whether or not Flynn’s lawyers wished to delay the sentencing hearing so that Flynn could “cooperate further” with the government. This was far, far beyond what even Mueller was asking, as he had recommended no jail time based on Flynn’s already completed cooperation.

Sullivan called a recess after his angry outburst and returned to the court in a calmer frame of mind, deliberately walking back many of his most unhinged and outrageous statements and attempting a show of being even handed. He elicited from prosecutors the fact that he was flat out wrong, in his outburst, when he said that Flynn was conducting foreign lobbying for Turkey from the White House. Flynn’s activities on behalf of Turkey ended shortly after the November election, well prior to his appointment as National Security Advisor. Judge Sullivan elicited from the prosecutor that Flynn was not guilty of treason and stated for the record that he was posing a hypothetical when he said that Flynn had “sold out” his country and dishonored the flag. He asked whether Flynn’s conversations with the Russian Ambassador were illegal and when the prosecutor replied that they might have violated the Logan Act, he practically laughed the prosecutor out of Court, remarking that the prosecutor was referring to an 18th Century statute which had never been prosecuted in all of its history. He said he still had many questions about the circumstances of the January 24, 2017, interview. But, the original angry outburst and very real threat to impose a prison sentence clearly signaled where this Judge presently stands. When Judge Sullivan asked for the third time whether Flynn and his attorneys wanted to postpone sentencing to allow for further “cooperation,” Flynn and his attorneys asked that sentencing be postponed for 90 days and the Judge ordered that delay.

As we have previously reported, this entire episode is outrageous and signals that Mueller et. al, are now intensifying their campaign to rid this nation of this President by any means necessary. Whether or not we survive as a nation under our Constitution now looms very large as a question. No institution, not the Congress and now not the Courts have shown themselves willing to stand up to the coup against the Presidency. It really is up to the People, educating themselves and moving with one voice to demand an end to Mueller’s criminal actions and any support for them by their Congressmen or Congresswomen. Instead, they must demand, that everyone involved in this coup must be prosecuted.

It is really also up to the People to now also urgently educate themselves on LaRouche’s Four Laws for Economic Recovery and call for a New Bretton Woods monetary system. As we have repeatedly warned, the driver for these rabid and insane actions against the President is nothing less than the financial collapse now just over the horizon and our Establishment’s abject fear that Trump just might bankrupt Wall Street and the City of London rather than the People in the wake of this collapse. He just might move, instead, with Russia, China, and India for full scale economic development of the nation and the world, something which is now imminently possible.

Related

President Xi Jinping, scheduled to arrive in Italy today for the historic summit in which Italy plans to join the Belt and Road Initiative, authored a guest editorial in the leading Italian newspaper Corriere della... read more

It has become entirely clear over the past 24 hours that the President and his defenders are on an all out offensive ahead of the release of the Mueller report, which many state is coming very soon. The President... read more

On the eve of his historic state visit to Italy March 21-23, Chinese President Xi Jinping answered students of Rome's Convitto Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele II boarding school, who had previously written a letter to... read more

Addressing a March 13 Milan conference on “Italy and the New Silk Road,” Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche put on the table a strategic perspective for the rapid unification of a now-disintegrating... read more

The importance of the progress in G7 member Italy, of China's Belt and Road Initiative and Lyndon LaRouche's "four economic laws," is shown by the fire it keeps drawing from geopolitical circles, not only in Europe... read more

The pace of global developments towards, on the one hand, a new Dark Age, and on the other hand, a New Paradigm of global peace through development, are both accelerating — one towards war and the end of civilization... read more